Friday 31 December 2010

Holiday Delay

Holiday delay today means this week's Commitments of Traders report will be issued Monday afternoon instead of today. Happy New Year!

Monday 27 December 2010

Bullish Natural Gas

Happy holidays! Welcome to an abbreviated Xmas version of COTs Timer. I've just updated my latest signals table based on today's holiday-delayed Commitments of Traders release from the CFTC. No new signals again this week. Taking effect on this week's open of trading were two previously announced signals: bullish for natural gas and cash for the Nikkei Stock Average. Tune back in tomorrow or the day after for a portfolio update, and best wishes in 2011! Now back to my eggnog.

Friday 17 December 2010

Treasury Bond Signal From Bearish to Bullish

Not much to report this week from the Commitments of Traders data. See my latest signals table for the details. The only new trade to take effect on Monday's open of trading is to sell my bearish position in the 30-year Treasury bond and go long. That one's worked out pretty nicely. So has my bearish position in natural gas, which has one more week to run; that setup then goes bullish on the open of the week of Dec. 27.
Hope you have a great weekend and good luck next week. Tune back in early next week for a portfolio update. Happy Holidays!

Friday 10 December 2010

Bullish: Gold; Cash: Financials; Bearish: Gas

I've just updated my latest signals table based on this afternoon's Commitments of Traders data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. U.S. financials go from bearish to cash. Gold goes from cash to bullish. Natural gas goes from cash to bearish. See the table for all the details, and check back in after the weekend for a portfolio update. Have a good weekend!

Stopped Out of S&P 500 Short Trade

I've been stopped out of my S&P 500 short position. As usual when something like this happens, I'll be looking at the charts to go in the opposite direction because it means an unusually strong trend.

Friday 3 December 2010

Slew of Red

Woah. What a mess of red showing up this week on my latest signals table! Although I'm quite long in my discretionary trades based on the sweet price action lately, the Commitments of Traders data just hates this market. I've just updated my table based on this afternoon's data from the CFTC. Some highlights:
- U.S. financials: My trading setup for the BKX U.S. Bank Index has gone bearish after 11 weeks in cash. This is due to huge declines in the total open interest of the large speculators and small traders in the three-month Eurodollar contract, plus declining net positioning of the large specs. The bearish signal takes effect on Monday's open of trading.

- Nikkei: My Nikkei setup also goes bearish on Monday's open.

- S&P 500: My S&P 500 setup has been bearish since Oct. 4, and the data remains steadfastly negatory despite the recent market action.

- Natural gas: Even natural gas is jumping into the bearish camp. This, even after its collapse over the last few eons. The signal takes effect with a week's trade delay - i.e. on Monday, Dec. 13.

Hope you had a good week and that you have an even better weekend. Tune back in early next week for a portfolio update.